Listen to Neil Young’s New Album ‘The Monsanto Years’

Neil Young is starting the week with a surprise gift for fans impatient to hear his new album, The Monsanto Years, before its scheduled arrival next week.

NPR is hosting a "First Listen" stream of the LP, which you can check out below, as well as an in-depth look at the themes Young explores on the nine-song set, which marks his 36th solo studio effort. "This is not subtle, Harvest Moon Neil, brooding at the piano," reads the report. "This is ornery, snarly Neil. Give him a megaphone and a transcript of these lyrics, put him on a street corner and watch what happens."

As previously reported, the new album is being touted as an "ecologically / environmentally focused" work, featuring songs openly critical of major corporations such as Starbucks, Walmart and Chevron. (Unsurprisingly, Young's corporate targets seem less than thrilled to be singled out.)

The Monsanto Years finds Young working in a new musical setting, enlisting Willie Nelson's sons Lukas and Micah as well as Lukas' band, Promise of the Real. It arrives less than a year after the ever-prolific Young's most recent album, Storytone, which itself came a little more than six months after A Letter Home.